Metallica (also known as The Black Album) is the fifth studio album by the American heavy metal band Metallica, released August 12, 1991 through Elektra Records. It features some of Metallica's most popular songs, "Enter Sandman", "The Unforgiven", "Nothing Else Matters" , "Wherever I May Roam" and "Sad but True". It spent four consecutive weeks at number one on Billboard 200. Metallica is the band's best-selling album to date, with over 15 million copies sold in the United States and over 22 million copies worldwide. It is the second best-selling album of the SoundScan era.

The album cover features only the band's logo, angled against the upper left corner, and a coiled snake (derived from the Gadsden flag) on the bottom right corner, both in a dark shade of gray in order to be made out against the black background. The motto of the Gadsden flag, "Don't Tread on Me", is also the title of a song featured on the album.